


one day we'll make it out of here

by minouribia



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, F/F, Hopeful Ending, mostly post-series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24941899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minouribia/pseuds/minouribia
Summary: Regina leaves, Emma stays.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	one day we'll make it out of here

Regina leaves, Emma stays. 

Emma has always been a runner, and yet she stays. She stays in a place she desperately wants to leave, she stays in a house everyone calls her home, and she stays with a man who she doesn’t love. 

_I’m not a runner anymore_ , she tells herself every time she wishes she went with them. She encourages the guilt growing a garden of weeds inside her, she calls it an anchor keeping her where she’s meant to be. 

She doesn’t realize running doesn’t have to be physical. 

Regina holds on too tight, and yet she leaves. She leaves the town she created to be with her son in a distant realm. A son who’s building a family of his own now. 

She’s okay- she’s _alive_ , and that’s all that really matters. She’s alive to fight for another morning, and the battles turn into conflicts that turn into petty squabbles. 

Her lungs aren’t full of flowers anymore, they’re full of fallen petals that will wilt away one day. At least, that’s what she hopes for. 

She doesn’t regret leaving- she can’t ever regret it, but she can wish it would’ve been different. 

Maybe it was never meant to be, but she could’ve accepted that sooner. Maybe she could’ve learned to live as an outsider looking in. Maybe she could’ve learned to live with half a heart again. 

Or maybe the could’ve would still be couldn’t in any timeline. It’s the uncertainty that will always eat at her. 

The unknown is a cruel mistress, after all. 

In the end, Emma stays, Regina leaves. 

Another curse happens. 

They break it. 

Nothing changes after it breaks.

They return to the lives they had in the Enchanted Forest. The memories fade quickly, and soon the lives they lived in Hyperion Heights are a movie playing in another room. 

The baby is born. 

Emma loves her. 

Nothing changes after she’s born. 

She doesn’t love Hook, and she’s beginning to realize she never will, but they co-parent the baby together. The town gushes over her, always ecstatic over _another true love baby_. 

But they only see the surface, they sit in the eye of the hurricane without even knowing it. They don’t see the havoc it’s causing, and maybe they never will. 

It’s impossible to explain complexity to someone who sees you as a cardboard cutout. 

The connection between realms starts breaking. No one notices the small breaks at first, and by the time they do, it’s too late to salvage anything. 

Magic beans lose their magic, and nothing will be able to bring it back. No lake with healing waters, not even a granted wish, could bring the magic back. 

Life goes on. 

Emma doesn’t learn this until months after it happens. A 5 month old Hope watches her mother sob for hours. She doesn’t understand much, but she cries alongside her. 

Emma devotes herself to caring for Hope. She’d been losing parts of herself for so long, but the ember has died out. The lights are on, but nobody's home. 

Her family starts to worry. It doesn’t register to Emma, it’s background static in a world of static. 

She cries more. She regrets, and she blames, and she cries. 

Maybe she should’ve run. For once there’s a destination ahead, but fallen trees cover every path towards it. She can see it so clearly, but it’s through a glass door with shatterproof glass and locks no key could ever open. 

Emma hurts. 

Regina cries sometimes when the realization hits her. She doesn’t let it get to her often, but she has no control over her thoughts when she’s asleep. 

Sometimes she dreams of Emma next to her, only to feel the cold space beside her that was never warm to begin with. It’s dreams like those that hit her the hardest, the dreams of every fantasy that won’t ever be. The impossible things she wants more than anything. 

Emma gets lost inside herself looking for a way to reach them. She ignores everyone telling her it doesn’t exist, she turns it into background static bouncing around in her head. 

She searches, and searches, and cries when the leads inevitably come to an abrupt end. Hope sits with her sometimes, not able to read yet, but wanting to help her mom. 

She points and laughs sometimes, like she’s found a way to beat the impossible. But the impossible stays impossible. 

Emma can’t find a way. 

Lucy grows up. Regina cries after her 16th birthday when she realizes it. 

Lucy has grown up without half her family, and she’ll never know a life with them in it. Her lungs are the most overgrown they’ve been in 16 years when she realizes Emma will never meet their granddaughter. 

“The ties are severed, Emma,” says a wizard. 

“It’s impossible to rebuild the links,” says a mage. 

“You’re running yourself ragged over the impossible,” says a witch. 

Emma doesn’t listen, of course. She keeps trying, and she tries until she can’t keep her eyes open anymore. She’ll keep trying until she’s in her grave. 

She doesn’t expect to find a letter laying on her chest when she wakes up. In fact, she nearly burns it out of surprise. 

But she doesn’t, and she opens it. It’s a simple message. 

_I miss Henry. I miss you. I love you both._

_This isn't the end. We'll find a way._

_We always do._

She reads it over and over until it’s too blurry to read again.


End file.
